David Grimm (playwright)
Encyclopedia
David Grimm is an American playwright
and screenwriter
, residing in Brooklyn, New York.
, and raised in Israel
. In Junior High, David Grimm produced, directed, and starred in an 1890’s melodrama which was presented to the entire Oberlin Middle School. In High School, where he was an active member of the National Thespian Society, he wrote and directed several one act plays, exploring a range of topics and styles from vampirism to the Theatre of the Absurd
.
Grimm attended Sarah Lawrence College
(BA, '87) and New York University
(MFA, '92). In college, Grimm concentrated in literature and pursued acting, studying in London. He wrote and directed an epic retelling of the life and death of King Edward II which starred a young Julianna Margulies
and the soon-to-be writer-producer Scott King. For a few years after college, Grimm worked on creating theatre with writer/performance artist David Drake
. After Graduate School at NYU, Grimm was literary manager at Williamstown Theatre Festival
for one season where a short play of his, “Enough Rope
,” was given a special presentation starring Elaine Stritch
.
Grimm's plays have received premieres at theatres such as The Public Theater, Hartford Stage
, The Huntington Theatre Company
, and La Jolla Playhouse
, among others. Grimm's plays have been developed at the Sundance Institute
's Sundance Theatre Lab and the Sundance Writers Retreat at Ucross, the Old Vic
New Voices series, New York Stage & Film, and through an NEA/TCG Residency Grant. He has taught playwriting and screenwriting at Columbia University
, Brown University
, and Yale School of Drama
.
Grimm is a member of the Writers Guild
, the Dramatists Guild, the PEN American Center
, and is an alumnus of New Dramatists and has written screenplays for Disney/Bruckheimer.
in Boston, MA in April, 2009. The production was directed by Huntington artistic director Peter Dubois, starring Dick Latessa
, Alma Cuervo
, Lucy Devitto.
The Story: A band of traveling commedia players in Renaissance Italy ignites the passions of the locals when they arrive to perform at the Feast of San Gennaro. A series of lovers romp through the town piazza seeking pleasure and finding love in this outrageously smart and bawdy comedy
.
The Story: Steve's life is spinning out of control. His work is going nowhere, his lover dumps him, his friendships are strained and, as if that's not enough, the ghost of General Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator, bursts through his window with a very strange demand.
as part of the Hartford Heritage Project, and developed in a workshop during the 2006 Brand:NEW Fall Festival of New Work.. The play received its world premiere at Hartford Stage in 2007 starring Robbie Sella and his wife, Enid Graham.
The Story: In 1927, a passionate and rebellious young man, A. Everett ("Chick") Austin, was made director of America's oldest public art museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. What followed was a career that shook up the city and reinvigorated the arts in America. But what is the cost—both personal and professional—of blazing such a trail? A play in three monologues based on the life and career of "Chick" Austin and his marriage to Helen Goodwin.
was developed at the Sundance Theatre Lab, as well as at the Old Vic New Voices program. It received its world premiere in March, 2006 at The Public Theater in New York, NY. The production was directed by Peter DuBois, starring Wayne Knight
, Michael Stuhlbarg
, and Euan Morton
and Suzanne Bertish
.
The Story: Will Blunt is in love with Molly, a young transvestite prostitute. But when Blunt rescues him from a life on the streets, he doesn't count on Molly falling in love with Dashwood, the handsome womanizing rake. Restoration comedy meets modern sex farce in this romantic adventure, exploring the elusive nature of happiness and featuring mistaken identities, duels and double-dealings, gay marriage and the obligatory sex cave.
The Story: A jazz-age screwball comedy riff on Molière's biting satire of pretense and learning. Betty wants to marry Dicky. Her mother Phyllis, a self-proclaimed intellectual and political activist, has another man in mind—namely, the hack poet and scheming opportunist Upton Gabbitt. Set in 1936 Manhattan against the backdrop of the Great Depression and impending war, this romantic comedy skewers those who wear their so-cial conscience on their sleeve and affirms that love conquers all.
The Story: Family secrets, political ambition, monstrous acts. Firmly rooted in the tradition of Jacobean revenge tragedies, the play presents a searing family portrait set in modern-day Hartford, CT. Two brothers—one returning from war, one thrown out onto the streets—search for the meaning in a world that threatens to destroy all they hold dear.
, Sam Trammell
and Keith David
.
The Story: Hungry for adventure and a way to make his mark, poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe
becomes a spy for a dark wing of the British government and seals his hero Sir Walter Raleigh's fate and his own. Set in the seedy underworld of Elizabethan England, this story of the meteoric rise and fall of Kit Marlowe—playwright, poet, spy and sexual outlaw—charts the ambitions of youth in a cold and unforgiving world.
in San Diego, CA in July, 2000. The production was directed by Mark Brokaw
.
The Story: Set in a London rife with gossip, blackmail and political intrigue during the reign of mad King George III, this darkly comic tale follows the development of the friendship between famed playwright, theatre manager and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan
and young poet Lord Byron. In this complicated world where everybody seems to be doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason, Sheridan comes to con-front the classic choice between doing the right thing and suffering personally, or betraying his conscience and profiting from it.
, starring Elaine Stritch
.
The Story: Born in a madhouse a hundred years ago, Edgar, a 21-year-old hunchback, longs to discover the wonders of the world that lie beyond the asylum walls. With the help of his tutor, a man imprisoned for brutally murdering his wife, Edgar confronts the pains of youth and price of dreams.
The Story: A gay, mass-murdering Gynecologist discovers the pain of true love in this fast-paced black comedy.
many of Grimm's plays are published by Dramatists Play Service
.
(twice), as well as a Drama League Award
nomination.
's Working in the Theatre. Grimm, Carlyle Brown, Quiara Alegría Hudes
and Lucy Thurber
talked about their differing styles of playwriting, what inspired them to start writing, how the world of the playwright has evolved and changed and what influences their writing and the challenges in getting their work produced.
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, residing in Brooklyn, New York.
Early years
Grimm was born October 18, 1965, in Oberlin, OhioOberlin, Ohio
Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, to the south and west of Cleveland. Oberlin is perhaps best known for being the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students...
, and raised in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. In Junior High, David Grimm produced, directed, and starred in an 1890’s melodrama which was presented to the entire Oberlin Middle School. In High School, where he was an active member of the National Thespian Society, he wrote and directed several one act plays, exploring a range of topics and styles from vampirism to the Theatre of the Absurd
Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work...
.
Grimm attended Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
(BA, '87) and New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(MFA, '92). In college, Grimm concentrated in literature and pursued acting, studying in London. He wrote and directed an epic retelling of the life and death of King Edward II which starred a young Julianna Margulies
Julianna Margulies
Julianna Luisa Margulies is an American actress and producer.After several small television roles, Margulies achieved success in her regular role as Nurse Carol Hathaway on NBC's long-running medical drama ER, for which she won an Emmy Award...
and the soon-to-be writer-producer Scott King. For a few years after college, Grimm worked on creating theatre with writer/performance artist David Drake
David Drake (actor)
David Drake is an American playwright, stage director, actor and author. He is best-known as the author and original performer of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, for which he received a Village Voice Obie Award, a 1994 Drama-Logue Award for "Outstanding Solo Performance," and a Robbie Stevens...
. After Graduate School at NYU, Grimm was literary manager at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown Theatre Festival
The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a regional summer stock theatre on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, founded in 1954 by Williams College news director, Ralph Renzi, and drama program chairman, David C. Bryant. The theatre was conceived as a way to use the Adams...
for one season where a short play of his, “Enough Rope
Enough Rope
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton is a television interview show originally broadcast on ABC Television in Australia...
,” was given a special presentation starring Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
.
His Work
Simultaneously utilizing and subverting classical dramatic structures and various historical settings, Grimm's plays speak to contemporary issues and audiences with "an authentically sharp wit" (The New York Times).Grimm's plays have received premieres at theatres such as The Public Theater, Hartford Stage
Hartford Stage
Hartford Stage, located in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works...
, The Huntington Theatre Company
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a non-profit professional theater company in Boston, Massachusetts. The Huntington has garnered six Elliot Norton Awards and three Tony Award nominations for productions that were transferred to Broadway after critically acclaimed productions in Boston...
, and La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...
, among others. Grimm's plays have been developed at the Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide...
's Sundance Theatre Lab and the Sundance Writers Retreat at Ucross, the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
New Voices series, New York Stage & Film, and through an NEA/TCG Residency Grant. He has taught playwriting and screenwriting at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, and Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
.
Grimm is a member of the Writers Guild
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
, the Dramatists Guild, the PEN American Center
PEN American Center
PEN American Center , founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators...
, and is an alumnus of New Dramatists and has written screenplays for Disney/Bruckheimer.
The Miracle at Naples
The Miracle at Naples received its world premiere at The Huntington Theatre CompanyHuntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a non-profit professional theater company in Boston, Massachusetts. The Huntington has garnered six Elliot Norton Awards and three Tony Award nominations for productions that were transferred to Broadway after critically acclaimed productions in Boston...
in Boston, MA in April, 2009. The production was directed by Huntington artistic director Peter Dubois, starring Dick Latessa
Dick Latessa
Richard Robert "Dick" Latessa is an American actor.Latessa was born in Cleveland, Ohio to a mother who was an automotive upholstery maker. Latessa made his Broadway debut in The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N in 1968...
, Alma Cuervo
Alma Cuervo
Alma Cuervo is an American stage actress and singer, who has also performed in film and television. She holds an M.F.A. in acting from the Yale School of Drama, from which she graduated in 1976 alongside Meryl Streep. She starred in the role of Madame Morrible in the first national tour of Wicked....
, Lucy Devitto.
The Story: A band of traveling commedia players in Renaissance Italy ignites the passions of the locals when they arrive to perform at the Feast of San Gennaro. A series of lovers romp through the town piazza seeking pleasure and finding love in this outrageously smart and bawdy comedy
Steve & Idi
Steve & Idi was developed at the Sundance Theatre Lab and is the first play from Rattlestick's "DirtyWorks" reading series to have a full production. The play received its world premiere at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York, NY in April, 2008 in which David Grimm played Steve to the Idi of Evan ParkeEvan Parke
Evan Parke is a Jamaican actor perhaps best known for his role as Hayes in King Kong. Originally from Jamaica, Parke was raised in Brooklyn, New York and then on Long Island...
.
The Story: Steve's life is spinning out of control. His work is going nowhere, his lover dumps him, his friendships are strained and, as if that's not enough, the ghost of General Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator, bursts through his window with a very strange demand.
Chick
Chick is based on the book Magician of the Modern by Eugene R. Gaddis and was commissioned by Hartford StageHartford Stage
Hartford Stage, located in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works...
as part of the Hartford Heritage Project, and developed in a workshop during the 2006 Brand:NEW Fall Festival of New Work.. The play received its world premiere at Hartford Stage in 2007 starring Robbie Sella and his wife, Enid Graham.
The Story: In 1927, a passionate and rebellious young man, A. Everett ("Chick") Austin, was made director of America's oldest public art museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. What followed was a career that shook up the city and reinvigorated the arts in America. But what is the cost—both personal and professional—of blazing such a trail? A play in three monologues based on the life and career of "Chick" Austin and his marriage to Helen Goodwin.
Measure for Pleasure
Measure for PleasureMeasure for Pleasure
Measure for Pleasure is a play written by David Grimm. It is set in the style of a Restoration comedy and concerns the romantic couplings of a host of nobles and servants.-Plot summary:...
was developed at the Sundance Theatre Lab, as well as at the Old Vic New Voices program. It received its world premiere in March, 2006 at The Public Theater in New York, NY. The production was directed by Peter DuBois, starring Wayne Knight
Wayne Knight
Wayne Eliot Knight is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor perhaps best known for his role as Newman in the TV sitcom Seinfeld...
, Michael Stuhlbarg
Michael Stuhlbarg
Michael S. Stuhlbarg is an American theatre, film and television actor.-Life and career:Stuhlbarg was born in Long Beach, California and raised in Reform Judaism. He trained at Juilliard School and also studied acting at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, University of London and UCLA...
, and Euan Morton
Euan Morton
Euan Douglas George Morton is an actor and singer. He is known for his role as Boy George in the musical Taboo, receiving nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award and Tony Award for his performance....
and Suzanne Bertish
Suzanne Bertish
Suzanne C. Bertish is an English actress.A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bertish has appeared in many productions with them, including their marathon eight-and-a-half hour version of Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, in which she played three roles...
.
The Story: Will Blunt is in love with Molly, a young transvestite prostitute. But when Blunt rescues him from a life on the streets, he doesn't count on Molly falling in love with Dashwood, the handsome womanizing rake. Restoration comedy meets modern sex farce in this romantic adventure, exploring the elusive nature of happiness and featuring mistaken identities, duels and double-dealings, gay marriage and the obligatory sex cave.
The Learned Ladies of Park Avenue
The Learned Ladies of Park Avenue received its world premiere at Hartford Stage in September, 2005 directed by artistic director Michael Wilson.The Story: A jazz-age screwball comedy riff on Molière's biting satire of pretense and learning. Betty wants to marry Dicky. Her mother Phyllis, a self-proclaimed intellectual and political activist, has another man in mind—namely, the hack poet and scheming opportunist Upton Gabbitt. Set in 1936 Manhattan against the backdrop of the Great Depression and impending war, this romantic comedy skewers those who wear their so-cial conscience on their sleeve and affirms that love conquers all.
The Savages of Hartford
The Savages of Hartford was commissioned by The Public Theater/NY Shakespeare Festival. Developed at Hartford Stage with the support from the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, and the Vivendi Universal Residency Award.The Story: Family secrets, political ambition, monstrous acts. Firmly rooted in the tradition of Jacobean revenge tragedies, the play presents a searing family portrait set in modern-day Hartford, CT. Two brothers—one returning from war, one thrown out onto the streets—search for the meaning in a world that threatens to destroy all they hold dear.
Kit Marlowe
Kit Marlowe received its world premiere at The Public Theater in November, 2000 starring Christian CamargoChristian Camargo
Christian Camargo is an American actor, perhaps best known for his role of Brian Moser in the Showtime drama Dexter.-Early life:...
, Sam Trammell
Sam Trammell
Sam Trammell is an American stage, film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Sam Merlotte in the HBO vampire series, True Blood, which saw him nominated for a 2009 Scream Award for "Breakout Performance - Male."...
and Keith David
Keith David
Keith David Williams , better known as Keith David, is an American film, television, voice actor, and singer. He is perhaps most known for his live-action roles in such films as Crash, There's Something About Mary, Barbershop and Men at Work...
.
The Story: Hungry for adventure and a way to make his mark, poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
becomes a spy for a dark wing of the British government and seals his hero Sir Walter Raleigh's fate and his own. Set in the seedy underworld of Elizabethan England, this story of the meteoric rise and fall of Kit Marlowe—playwright, poet, spy and sexual outlaw—charts the ambitions of youth in a cold and unforgiving world.
Sheridan, or Schooled in Scandal
Sheridan, or Schooled in Scandal received its world premiere at La Jolla PlayhouseLa Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...
in San Diego, CA in July, 2000. The production was directed by Mark Brokaw
Mark Brokaw
Mark Brokaw is a stage director. He won the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Director of a Play for How I Learned to Drive.Brokaw was raised in Aledo, Illinois and graduated from the Yale Drama School...
.
The Story: Set in a London rife with gossip, blackmail and political intrigue during the reign of mad King George III, this darkly comic tale follows the development of the friendship between famed playwright, theatre manager and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
and young poet Lord Byron. In this complicated world where everybody seems to be doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason, Sheridan comes to con-front the classic choice between doing the right thing and suffering personally, or betraying his conscience and profiting from it.
Enough Rope
Enough Rope was done at Williamstown Theatre FestivalWilliamstown Theatre Festival
The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a regional summer stock theatre on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, founded in 1954 by Williams College news director, Ralph Renzi, and drama program chairman, David C. Bryant. The theatre was conceived as a way to use the Adams...
, starring Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
.
edgar
edgar was the winner of the 1996 Julie Harris Playwright’s Award; the 1996 Panowski Award; University of Northern Michigan (1996).The Story: Born in a madhouse a hundred years ago, Edgar, a 21-year-old hunchback, longs to discover the wonders of the world that lie beyond the asylum walls. With the help of his tutor, a man imprisoned for brutally murdering his wife, Edgar confronts the pains of youth and price of dreams.
Killing Hilda
Killing Hilda was Produced by Blue Moon Productions, NYC in 1999 and Stage Q, Madison, WI in 2001.The Story: A gay, mass-murdering Gynecologist discovers the pain of true love in this fast-paced black comedy.
Theatrophy
Theatrophymany of Grimm's plays are published by Dramatists Play Service
Dramatists Play Service
Established in 1936 by members of the Dramatists Guild and the Society for Authors' Representatives, Dramatists Play Service, Inc. is a theatrical publishing and licensing house...
.
Awards and honors
Grimm's work has received the Julie Harris Playwright Award, the Bug 'n Bub Award, the Panowski Award, and has been nominated for GLAAD Media AwardsGLAAD Media Awards
The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives...
(twice), as well as a Drama League Award
Drama League Award
The Drama League Awards, created in 1935, honor distinguished productions and performances both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in addition to recognizing exemplary career achievements in theatre, musical theatre, and directing...
nomination.
Appearances
Originally taped in December 2007, Grimm joined a panel of playwrights on American Theatre WingAmerican Theatre Wing
The American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...
's Working in the Theatre. Grimm, Carlyle Brown, Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes is an American playwright and author best known for writing the book for the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights.-Personal life:...
and Lucy Thurber
Lucy Thurber
-Career:As of 2007, she is the author of eight plays: Where We’re Born, Ashville, Innocence is a Sin, Killers & Other Family, Stay, Bottom of the World, Monstrosity, and Scarcity. She was the recipient of the 2000/2001 Manhattan Theatre Club playwriting fellowship...
talked about their differing styles of playwriting, what inspired them to start writing, how the world of the playwright has evolved and changed and what influences their writing and the challenges in getting their work produced.